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Before Your Eyes (PC) by dkirschner (Apr 14th, 2024 at 13:51:13) |
I've been looking forward to playing this, especially after playing One Hand Clapping, which had a singing mechanic. That game activates your mic and you use your voice, raising and lowering pitch, to interact with the game. Before Your Eyes was similar in that the game activates your webcam and uses your eye blinks as input. Before Your Eyes works WAY better than One Hand Clapping, and it's the better game all around. I figure that detecting blinks (yes/no) is easier than detecting notes along the range of human vocal pitch, so kudos to One Hand Clapping for trying.
Blinking in Before Your Eyes doesn't do anything unless you do it over a prompt (mouse over the prompt, then blink to interact) or unless you do it when the metronome icon is visible, which progresses the story to the next scene. The rules are simple, and it became a game in and of itself for me to blink strategically. I imagined that at the end of A Clockwork Orange, Alex's eyes are forced open so that he could successfully complete this game. At times, I felt like holding my eyes open with my fingers. This is because your eyes will get tired/dry/itchy while playing and you will screw up and blink when you don't mean to, skipping dialogue or ending a scene early. That's frustrating enough. Make sure you do the blink calibration, but I think that no matter how well you do it, it will still occasionally register some non-blinks as blinks. This really didn't happen much for me; through calibration, I think I turned the sensitivity way down, and I wonder what effect wearing glasses had. But like I said, it works surprisingly well.
So, the game itself is narrative-heavy. It's an obvious play on the idea that a life can pass in the "blink of an eye." You're picked up by a ferryman of souls who asks you to tell the story of your life. Back in time you go to remember it: your childhood, your parents, your career, etc., blinking your way through each scene. I won't spoil the story, but there is a twist that I absolutely did not see coming (though I should have paid more attention to the mysterious dark scenes) that changes the narrative and the tone of the game. This is one you can spend time reflecting on.
Aesthetically, it's got a simple visual presentation, sort of painterly, with some really nice piano music. The voice acting is good, with the exception of the girl-next-door (who sounds the same at 10 as she does at 40). For some reason, they also used the same voice actor for your dad and her dad, which made the one scene with her dad calling her very confusing ("Why is my dad at her house?!"). But I liked the dad and mom's performances. I was wondering through the whole game if your character was mute and/or on the spectrum because he doesn't talk--only through a typewriter later in the game--and otherwise expresses himself through his prodigious musical and artistic talents. But I think he's just a silent main character, not actually mute.
Anyway, the game won a BAFTA for a reason. It didn't blow my mind, but it's a neat experience that's worth having. It's short too, doesn't waste your time. I'm considering incorporating it into a class.
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Stray (PC) by dkirschner (Apr 13th, 2024 at 12:00:39) |
Patrick and I have been playing this together this semester, and finished it a couple weeks ago. We were talking after beating it about despite how simple and straightforward of a game this is, it manages to be something new. Playing as a cat (and being able to do cat things like curl up and sleep, scratch things, knock objects off tables, etc., so cuuuute) was novel, and the setting and story were interesting. But really, playing as a cat. I smiled a whole lot throughout the game. The lil companion robot was cute too.
On the other hand, I was often tired and bored while playing, and literally fell asleep during several sessions. Patrick would be making dinner or something in the kitchen, and I'd snap awake, cat walking into a wall, and I'd pretend I had not fallen asleep, and that I was just watching the cat walk into the wall and thinking. Like how my dad always used to claim he was "resting his eyes" when he'd fall asleep on the couch.
I would not call the game exciting. It was a lot of wandering around the city and talking to robot NPCs, fetching things for them. The city is a really good-looking dystopia, and the robots are quirky, but I wish they had more dialogue. You don't get a sense that many of them have personalities besides whatever one-note thing they do. I mean, the lack of dialogue makes sense, and it's not really "dialogue" since the cat can't talk. The fact that you are a cat adds a whole layer of silly to the game. Like, why has this lil robot befriended a cat? Why are all these robots putting all their faith in a cat to save them? Cats don't understand what we're saying to them, and cats do whatever they want! Playing as a cat in a game where you're doing fetch quests (fetching is dog stuff!) and doing things to help people is very un-cat-like.
But, you know what? The ability to play as a cat and do cat things trumps how little sense it makes, and I would play as a cat in this dystopia again. Idea for next time: more cats. And what do you think? Were there cats at the end?! Optimistically, I think so.
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Hadean Tactics (PC) by jp (Apr 7th, 2024 at 13:32:36) |
This game is supposed to be a deck-building tactical game and it sort of isn't, but very lightly is - at least in my experience so far.
So, like CD2: Trap Master this game REALLY wears it's Slay the Spire inspirations on its sleeve. Again, there's a path you that branches and you need to pick which nodes to visit - and there's fights, boss fights, resting spots, stores, artifact/rewards, and shops. Oh, there's also "story encounters" where you make a choice that often results in a benefit and a drawback. VERY Slay the Spire - though I noticed the way the events are distributed is different and that it's much more important to plan your way through it since the paths intersect a lot less and you can, for example in my last run, set yourself up with 4 rest/upgrade a card spots in a row!
In addition to a deck of cards you have the character you chose and two "minions" (they're all monsters) that exist on a 2D grid that's quite typical of tactical games. The enemies will spawn, you have energy to cast your cards - generally you cast your cards, unpause and wait for the timer to pause the game when it hits the threshold (7 seconds) for your hand to flush, a new hand is drawn, and you get more mana to cast spells. What isn't really tactical about it is that all the fighting on the tactical grid (which includes everyone having abilities they cast once their mana is full) happens automatically. You can't (afaik) give orders to anyone. At best, if you have the right spells, you can move creatures around (your own or enemy), but they then move back to whatever it is they want to do (e.g. attack the nearest enemy).
One of my runs used a character that had access to "trap" cards which are pretty neat since you lay them on the grid and then have to trigger them (with a different card) and ALL the trap laid will trigger. Some do damage, others heal your allies, and so on. So, the game isn't tactical at all in the turn-by-turn combat and movement decision-making sense. Yes, you choose whom to roll into a fight with, which spells to cast on whom, and when to cast things. But, since you don't directly control your combat units it all feels pretty indirect.
Where the game goes pretty wild (and above/beyond what Slay the Spire does) is that once you've cleared a run - you gain access to making your own hero - choose skills/talents from a list AND choose which spells will be available (again from a list, which only has the ones you've unlocked). So, in this sense the game has a lot, lot more options/replayability and that sort of thing. But, I'm not sure it's that much more interesting?
Oh, there is a meta-progression. When I beat my first run a giant death/reaper creature appeared and said "ok, now you can start to make progress towards winning - you have to collect wings". And I've collected a few since, you get them from killing the stage end bosses (which is nice in that you don't have to get all the way to the end). I need to get 7 - so I wonder if I'll just have to play over and over until I randomly get the right bosses or will the game feed me different ones until I get them all? I've also unlocked a new (third) character...but I kind of don't want to use it because I want to get all the wings with the character I've made some progress with.
I've played about 4 hours and I've really enjoyed the "decay" and "trap" mechanics... we'll see how it goes!
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Deathloop (PS4) by jp (Apr 4th, 2024 at 11:14:36) |
Argh. The longer you go without playing, the worse this game's experience becomes. This is almost entirely due to me forgetting both how to play, but also all the localized information and knowledge you pick up - like who is where, when, and so on.
I love the idea of a "clockwork" game where you deftly navigate your way through things that happen and certain times and places - there's a sense of beauty and elegance to the choreography you develop and create (sort of like when you watch those time loop movies and see a character weave through people and places because they know what's going to happen when and they've just learned it). BUT, that beauty also creates an entry barrier - at least a psychological one for me, because the game's on-ramp is past and now you're in the thick of it. But you've forgotten everything...
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Devil May Cry 5 (PS4) by jp (Apr 4th, 2024 at 11:09:05) |
So I took a break - and then came back to the game and had forgotten how to play. It took a bit to remember (I purposefully avoided looking stuff up because I wanted to see how easy it was for me to remember). So, some of the fights with V took longer than they should have - because I had forgotten that V has to "finish off" the enemies...lol.
While I often focus (for my own personal interests) on game play and game design aspects of a game - I realized as I was playing this game that..wow, the visual design of the large enemies really is phenomenal. They're both beautiful, awesome, creepy, gross, and disgusting. It's quite the accomplishment and I really appreciated it. And, this is in the context of me playing a game that is ~7 years old and running on last gen hardware. Perhaps I haven't played enough PS5 games yet so I'm still too impressionable? Have things moved that far in terms of photorealism?
I have decided to move on even though I realize, from the back of the box, that I'll miss out on the 3rd playable character. It's no fault or problem with DMC5...it's just that I've got too many games to play and I think I've understood enough about this game to move on to another.
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Durak(Idiot) (Other) by vkbl111 |
| I like this game. Simple but can be fun with a good group of people |
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most recent entry: Tuesday 5 February, 2013
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Durak(Idiot) Games 1 and 2. Played January 16th.
Durak(Translates from Russian approximately to Idiot) is a competitive 2 to 4 player card game. The goal of the game is to get rid of all the cards in the deck, and then your hand, while at the same time attempting to make your opponents take in as many cards as possible. The loser is declared Durak (Idiot).
=Players=
There have to be at least 2 and at most 4 players to play idiot. The more players there are the shorter the game usually lasts due to the constant size of the game deck. Usually the person providing the deck is the initial Dealer, and the winner of a game is usually declared as the new dealer.
=The Deck=
The game is played with a standard Russian deck of cards. Often when cards are bought in the Ex-Soviet Union the deck comes with cards of 4 suits: Club, Hearts, Diamonds, and Spades, and with cards going from 6 to Ace.
=The Game=
The deck is shuffled. The dealer initially deals six cards to each player. After the cards are dealt, the top card on the deck is removed and flipped and placed under the deck with part of it sticking out. The suit of the card is the Kozir(translated to something along the lines of a Trump suit). The player with the lowest value of trump card goes first and places a card down. If they have two of the same value they are allowed to place two cards. The person to the right is then to defeat these cards with either a card of the same suit of a higher value, or a trump suit card (even a trump 6 can beat a regular ace, yet trump cards can only be beaten with trump cards of a higher value). If the person that went has a card that the previous cards were defeated with they can then place them down to make the person to the right beat them again. If the person who was "attacked" cannot beat any of the cards they were "attacked" with they are to take the cards they were attacked with in addition to the cards they defended with. If they defeat the cards they were attacked with the cards are sent to Otboi(Knock out). If after the turn any player has less than six cards they are to draw from the deck until they own six cards if the number of cards in the deck allows it. The turn then goes to the player on the right of the attacker. The player that gets rid of all their cards first wins the game.
=Game Play=
First Session:
We played with 4 people for the first session, 3 long time players and a new player. After explaining the rules to the new player and playing a test game we played for some tokens, we used bottle caps in place of money.
I was named the dealer since I brought the card deck with me to the game session. I dealt the cards to all the players, myself last, and then flipped the top card to determine that Diamonds was the trump suit for this game. I happened to have a 7 of diamonds, which turned out to be the lowest trump, so I went first. The newbie player was the one who was defending, and ended up defeating my single card fairly easily, though she did have to sacrifice a higher value club to defeat my measly 8 of clubs.
After a few turns one of the older players was choosing to not defeat cards they were attacked with and as a result hoarding a large amount of cards. This is a common strategy I have often used that allows you after a chosen point, often when there are no cards left to draw from the deck, to start attacking with pairs and triples of cards and tossing in cards of same value as ones defended with. This can often overwhelm a player towards the end of the game since they have used most of their trumps and higher value cards. It is a risky maneuver since a player can defeat all your cards and exit the game and win, with you left with a large amount of cards as the loser.
The newbie player did not realize this strategy, and fell into the older players trap. The older player ended up using all their cards and forcing the newbie to take in all those cards. After that 3 of us were left to decide who was second. I had been hoarding trump cards, and was left with only them. This is another strategy I have seen throughout the years I have played this game, and mostly depends on luck of the draw to get a large amount of trump cards. I went with just the trump cards, and since they cannot be defeated with anything other than higher value trump cards, I quickly exited the game and was declared second place winner. The two other players were labeled Durak(Idiot).
Both of these strategies used by the older player and myself show the definite lean of this game towards experienced players, even when luck is such a big part of the game. I have seen a newbie win before, based on luck alone, but it is not common. There are many strategies that players come up with after having experience with the game.
Second Session:
The second game was played right after the end of the first game, this time just between the experienced player that won the first game and me. A two player game is usually more intense and longer since the cards in the deck do not get exhausted as quickly. The other player was the dealer since he won the previous game. The trump suit came out to be Hearts.
Since the player and I have both been playing the game for at least 10 years, the game was leaning even more on strategy than luck of the draw. Neither of us used the hoarding techniques we used in the previous game. There was a balance of attacking with too many cards and attempting to defend unsuccessfully since it showed the other player the cards you would have. I tried very hard to remember every card that I had seen that the other player had. In the end the player outwitted my by baiting my trump cards with his high value cards such as Kings and Queens. He then proceeded to make me pick up cards by going with first his high cards, and then trump cards in ascending order to not give me a chance to defend his future attacks with cards he made me pick up. Needless to say I lost and was labeled Durak.
This game displayed the need strategy even more. It demonstrated a strategy of being careful of what cards you let the opponent pick up to defend yourself in the future, as well as a memory of what cards the opponent has picked up. This is usually seen more in 2 player games, as well as games with experienced players. Luck has even less of an influence on an outcome when its two experienced players playing a pre-decided strategy.
=Overall=
Durak is a fun and fairly simple card game, even though strategy is often used by experienced players. It is heavily unbalanced towards experienced players, and often requires many sessions to understand all the nuances and strategies used in the game. This game has been played for many years in many Eastern European countries and is a blast when playing with friends, even if just for the chance to label them Idiot.
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